In 2009 I received the following email from Henk Aalders of Queensland,
Australia. It is posted here as I received it, minus some formatting
for the website. -Jeff

Dear Jeff....

Thanks for the reply .
My wife anf I have just returned from visitring the Ahlers of St Henry (Oh).
The Alders of Holland and the remnants of the Ahlers family in Oldenburg, where
we had the pleasure of Dr Mahlmann's company and that of Monika Thoelking.
We were astounded how close the old Ahlers house is to that of the Hagstedts and Koks.
The Ahlers boys could just "whistle to their neighbours and the Hagstedt and Kok girls
just came running..." .......

Besides Dr Jozef Mahlmann, a Cloppenburg dentist, has a most amazing digital
collection of data. He believes that it is likely that the Ahlers descended
from Evorhund ,a person sufficiently important at the time to be mentioned in
a deed of gift of land by a Graf Walbert to the Catholic Church on 17 October 872
to establish the St Alexander church in Wildeshausen. That text can be viewed on
the internet ,be it that it is entirely in Latin .-----

The "mysterious" Anthony Aylor is Mysterious No More

-by Henk Aalders

For those of you who have noticed the "Mysterious" Anthony
Aylor article on Jeff Aylors website ,I have news . Anthony Aylor is
really Anthony Alers , spouse of Anna Catharina Elias Smith and son of
(John) Casper Ahlers. He is most definitely NOT the son of Johan Adolph
Alers and Catherina Deels as an observer had concluded from the L.D.S
database ,but he appears most definitely related to Uncle Johan Adolph
and aunt Catharina . Likewise brother Adolph Alers may be his brother,
but is most definitely not the son of Johan Adolph and Catharina Deels
for the simple reason that Uncle Johan Adolph's own son Adolph was
presumably happily married to Sophia Barlage and was busily raising his
two sons Johan Henrich born 1748 and Johan Wessel Alers in 1744.,and
unable to use the best spermbank in the world . Even if he had access to
"pidgeon post" , I am sure that Elisabeth Campbell would see to it that
his "remittances" to Bakum were sufficiently delayed to get Sophia
pregnant at the same time . The long and the short of it is that I
suspect that both Adolph and Johan Casper have been " fitted out" with
parents at the L D S computer centre ,often not an unreasonable thing to
do, but wrong on this occasion .

How do we know that they are from Bakum if they had different parents to
those previously assumed? I am a direct descendant of Henrich Juergen
Ahlers from Vechta who together with his 3rd cousin Casper Otto Alers
from Bakum migrated to Holland and married a wife there in 1735 just a
few months after Henrich did . Although it always looked probable that
Henrich and Casper were related ,I have had enormous support from an
elderly German genealogist a Dr Josef Mahlmann ,who has a fantastic
database .Josef consulting the 1568 and 1640 census of all villages in
the Vechta Landkreiss established that there simply were no Alers or
Ahlers in Bakum ,Oythe, Langfoerden, Vechta, Lohne . Bokern or Spreda on
those dates . The family farms had since AD 770 been in Varnhuesen ,
Varnhorn since 1410 and Siedenbogen some time after that . The Catholic
Ahlers of Southern Oldenburg are one family originating from Visbek
where Alerdt to Varnhuesen still raised his children properly
worshipping Wodan ,Donar and a large Tree which was considered God of
fertility ,which we expect from an Ahlers family.

Enter Emperor Charlemagne or "Karel der Grosse" flanked by St Boniface,
and under some considerable duress ,feeling how sharp the sword
between his shoulder-blades was , Alerdt followed his chief Widekund and
reluctantly accepts Catholicism and is roped into building the first
wooden Catholic Church of St Vitus in Germany ,in Visbek .Not however
after Widekund was coerced into a wager with Boniface . "I get your God
chopped down and if nothing bad happens in 2 weeks ,my God who lives in
the clouds wins" .And so it was done .The tree came down ,nothing bad
appears to have happened and Alerdt and his neighbours became Catholics.
Now note the somewhat undiplomatic and possibly quite insulting
"rub",which follows - The "Tree God" is cut down and then sawn into
planks likely used to build the first St Vitus Church .

Now Boniface now 80 years old did not have time to stay and drink cups
of coffee with Widekund ,He had business up north with the Friesians .
Once he reached Dokkum , in Friesland the Friesian chief had nowhere
near the same appreciation of Boniface's good work and unfortunately for
Boniface ,the Friesian chief had just sharpened his axe. In fact he was
so furious with him for removing his God of fertility (and annual source
of new Friesian babies ) that he chopped off the head of the old man
,which took nowhere near the effort spent by Boniface to cut the mighty
Oak tree . It all got sorted out in the end .Boniface was given a
Sainthood ,and title "Patron Saint of the Germans" be it that he
actually was English .... and Alerdt and neighbours lost their land
which the new Church now appropriated "since Alerdt now no longer needed
earthly possessions in his transit stay here on earth".

Those of you interested in the local history of the place ,look up
Evorhund on the internet , and you will be presented with a Deed of Gift
executed by Graf Walbert (grandson of Widekund) and spouse Altburg dated
17 Oct A D 872 connected with the gift of land to establish the Catholic
Church of St Alexcander in Wildeshausen ..(Niedersachsen) . The Deed
totally in Latin appears to "rope in " the locals by name i e Hiis ita
peractis notum sit omnibus,quod dos,quam dedi ad ecclesiam sancti
Alexandre fratrum sit ... Werinbern, Gerhart ,Ricbrecht, Macuben,
Inkedes,.....(in) Holthusen ..(Messrs) Gerlec and Ebbo (in) Farnthorpe
(Mr) Evorhund ..in Esithorpe(Astrup near Visbek) (Messrs) Tatto and
Waddo and in Ivorithi (Erlte near Visbek) (Messrs) Tiodo and Uffo .etc
etc . The very learned Dr Mahlmann then finds that the children of
Evorhund are Dyrick ten Verhorn , Clawes ten Verhorn, Eybe ten Verhorn
and Ahlard ten Verhorn . He also adds his comment that the population in
the "vilages" around Visbek in those days was exceptionally
sparse,suggesting that Evorhund was one of my forefathers as he was of
the "mysterious" Anthony Aylor ,his Dad Casper and Uncle Johan Adolph
Aylor .

It took my family 1045 years to save up enough money and some
interference by Napoleon who had no great liking for the Church , to buy
back their farm for 1800 guilders from the Church . Now Dr Mahlmann
confirmed that three brothers ,Alerdt,Hilmer and Henrich ,all born ca
1615 and sons of Alerdess,the grandson of Ahlerdt decided to move out of
Visbek .Great- grandpa Alerdt just missed out by one year inheriting his
farmers farm ,which went to Hinderich ,who now became Zeller . Great
grandson Alerdt decided to have his family in Oythe, Hilmer went to
Bakum and Henrich via three sons Otto, Henrich and Ahlert populated via
Oythe ,Vechta ,which included Langfoerden and Bokern .

So what does this largely true story mean to you? If you count Anthony
or Adolph or Casper amongst your forebears, you can safely tell your
grandchildren this fantastic story, not even telling a fib. Secondly
Dr Mahlmann was smart enough to do some double checking He checked the
birth registers for Alers as Godparents and found the first in 1660 and
the second in 1678 . So irrespective of which of the likely Uncles was
the father of Adolph or Jan Casper now named Aylor , it matters little
for when we come to Granddad there is Only Hilmer and wife Talke .

How come that Adolph and Anthony are now named Aylor ? It is highly
likely that neither could read nor write for their early relatives
migrating to Holland could not . Then a man from Oldenburg even at his
very best Plattdeutsch is not that easy to understand . Unlike the Dutch
who will pronounce the letter A as a long AA vowel , hence my name
Aalders . Adolph ,Casper and Anthony would have announced themselves as
Mr Awlers ,hence the mutations of Alers to Olers or Oalers, Oellers ,
Eilers ultimately becoming Aylor . If you can't read or write ,who cares
how your name is written ?

Now why should you believe me ? My secret is that we were Oh so lucky
to be the subject of an academical study carried out by a Prof Dr
Clemens Pagenstert in his book the "Farms of Landkreiss Vechta" written
in 1908 Dr Pagenstert looked at all the old abbey tax records and there
he was , My forefather Alerdt to Vernhuesen AD 770-830 together with
neighbour Meijer to Vernhusen .The two "big shots" in local farming of
that day in that place ... Perhaps he is yours also !

Anyone interested in the Ahlers families of Oldenburg look up the website;
"The Catholic Ahlers families of Southern Oldenburg ".